ON
THE GENEALOGY OF INFORMATION

Rafael
Capurro

Paper
presented at the international conference: Information. New
Questions
to a Multidisciplinary Concept organized by the German Society for
System Research that took place at the Brandenburgische
Technische Universität Cottbus, Zentrum für Technik und
Gesellschaft.
First published in: K. Kornwachs, K. Jacoby
Eds.:
Information. New Questions to a Multidisciplinary Concept, Akademie
Verlag
Berlin 1996, pp. 259-270.

CONTENTS

I. On
the word and concept of information II.
Information as an Anthropological
Phenomenon III.
Information in
the Context of Myth, Poetry and Revelation IV.
Information in
the Context of Philosophy, Science and Printing Technology V.
Information in the
Context of Electronic Technology

Conclusion

References

Acknowledgements

Abstract

After a short
overview on the history of the word and concept of information, a
genealogy
of information as an anthropological category is proposed. The
phenomenon
of human messages involving semantic and pragmatic aspects is related
to
different power structures. The task of a genealogy is to analyze the
contingency
of such structures in the past, in order to look for a critical
appraisal
and a possible transformation of the present structures. Beginning with
the conflict between the vertical and horizontal structures in
Antiquity
and the Middle Ages, which are related to the concepts of angelía
and lógos, our electronic galaxy has evolved out of the
modern
utopia of printing as a censorship-free space. Our information
structure
is characterized by a plurality of messages and messengers where the
question
of power (manipulation, monopolies, disorientation) within a new social
information order is still open.

The history of the word
'information' provides some hints on the genealogy
of the concepts
of 'information'. This word has been used in English since the 14th
century
to denote the action of informing or "moulding of the mind or
character,
training, instruction, teaching" (The Oxford English Dictionary 1961),
a fact that is connected to William the Conqueror and the influence of
the French tongue on Anglo-Saxon English (Schement 1992). The
denomination
of the action of imparting knowledge as information has its
origin
in the Latin and Greek roots of this word, namely in informare,
in the ontological sense of moulding or forming a piece of matter and,
metaphorically, human knowledge.

The relation
between ontology and epistemology play a significant role in Greek
philosophy,
particularly with regard to the concepts of eidos/idéa, morphé
and typos in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The Latin
terms informatio/informare appear in translations and
commentaries of
these Greek philosophical concepts. It is only at the end of the Middle
Ages, with the decay of scholastic philosophy and the rise of
Modernity,
that the ontological meaning becomes unusual and the epistemological
one
remains (Capurro 1978).

Dr Johnson mentions
them in his famous dictionary of 1755. After the common uses of
"intelligence
given" and "charge or accusation given" he notes: "the act of informing
or actuation", a 'scholastic' reminiscence (Johnson 1755). When Claude
Shannon and Warren Weaver develop their mathematical theory of
communication
they distance themselves from the "psychological factors" involved in
the
ordinary use of this concept and establish a neutral or non-specific
human
meaning of "information content" with regard to the process of
selection
and communication of symbols independently of their meaning for the
receiver.
They thus omit "the question of interpretation" (Shannon/Weaver 1949).
Paradoxically this neutral meaning, common to machines and human
beings,
which cybernetics will later confirm and which was criticized by
Yehoshua
Bar-Hillel as a "semantic trap" (Bar-Hillel 1973, p.196; Zoglauer 1995,
Rieger 1995), provides an analogy for the ancient ontological use of
the
word. Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäker remarks that information being
neither matter nor energy (Wiener 1961) has a similar status as the
'platonic
eidos' and the 'aristotelian form' (Weizsäcker 1974).

This paper is
a contribution to the study of the genealogy of the concept of
information
as an anthropological category. This specific anthropological view
makes
a difference to its cybernetic meaning as analyzed for instance by
Heinrich
Völz (Völz 1995). Because of its association with meaning the
'question of interpretation', as Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver have
remarked, becomes a basic one. An anthropological theory of information
has to do with the interpretation, construction and transmission of
meaning,
i.e. with what an old tradition (going back to Hermes as the messenger
of the gods) calls hermeneutics.

The development
of an anthropological information theory within the framework of
hermeneutics
embracing not just the interpretation but also the construction and
transmission
of messages is still an open task. It concerns not only information and
library science but also 'informatics' (or computer science) (Capurro
1990
and 1992). The intersection between hermeneutics and information theory
means not only a transformation of the latter but also of the former
seeing
that traditional hermeneutics was primarily oriented towards the
interpretation
of the spoken word and/or printed texts. A hermeneutics of information
science should also embrace the construction and transmission of
messages
by particularly taking into account the question of the media, as has
indeed
been done since Plato's criticisms of writing. In our present situation
we are looking particularly for the new hermeneutic questions which
arise
in an electronically networked world (Capurro 1986).

II. INFORMATION AS AN
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

But first of
all we should ask which are the general characteristics of the
anthropological
phenomenon of information, i.e. of our capability of sending and
receiving
messages which are potentially meaningful and have a potential
practical
relevance. Such a general characteristic is for instance that a message
is not said to 'entail' information independently of a context
(language,
culture, theory, project...) inside which it may make a difference or
not.
In this last case we have to do with redundancy or 'noise'. There is no
'information in itself', independent of a context or a field of
redundancy
with which it interferes.

"Information
can be defined as a difference that makes a difference", as
Gregory
Bateson has formulated (Bateson 1987, p.17). Information depends,
secondly,
on our capacity of judgement. To judge means in this case being able to
evaluate whether or not a message makes a significant difference in a
given
situation. This is the reason why the question of relevance in library
and information science is a difficult one, if we want to distinguish
and
explore for instance the relationship between the system-oriented and
the
user-oriented relevance of information retrieval results (Froehlich
1994,
Capurro 1986). A message can become information if there is a basis of
'pre-understanding' or a shared code. This is a necessary condition, as
Shannon and Weaver have stated, also in the case of establishing a
purely
quantitative measure of information content. 'Pre-understanding' means
sharing a context when we start exchanging messages. This context is
ultimately
the very situation of our being in the world with others i.e. our mode
of existence as communicative beings. To exist in the way of
communication
is indeed a characteristic common to living beings.

One basic difference
between human and non-human communication is human language, which
enables
us not just to react to a given stimulus but purposely to change our
relationships
to ourselves and to the world. If we call this capacity, by remembering
the ancient use of the word, 'information' in the sense of being able
to
create or 'in-form' new contexts of meaning, then we can say that we
are
not just immersed in a pre-given communicative context nor are we
basically
determined by a stimulus-response-communication-structure but that we
can
handle information within an open horizon of alternatives. Language
enables
us to change and/or create new contexts of thinking and action. To live
in a predetermined context of 'pure communication' means in some cases
individual and/or social self-annihilation as, for instance, in
paranoia
or in totalitarian political situations.

According to
Daniel Bougnoux there is a paradoxical relationship between information
and communication: information originates between tautology (or 'pure
communication')
and pure contingency (Bougnoux 1995). In order to grasp a message as
information
we need both, communication i.e. a shared pre-understanding and the
capacity
to judge whether a message makes a difference in the web of world
relationships
in which we are immersed. It is evident that every information process
is non-neutral. A message we send or receive is to be called
information
if, and only if, it entails the possibility of changing in a
significant
manner something of our previous ways of relating to ourselves, to
other
persons, to things and to situations in the world.

The phenomenon
of information is linked to that of power. Roughly speaking, this
relation
has two perspectives, namely a vertical one, where messages are being
imposed,
and a horizontal one where messages are freely interchanged. A
genealogy
of information as I am suggesting it in this paper has the task of
exploring
the mechanisms of power in the information process under these two
viewpoints
in their manifold appearances. The genealogical analysis shows that
there
is neither pure verticality nor pure horizontality. It also shows that
there is no linear and/or ideal development from a vertical to a
horizontal
structure. The idea of 'free flow of information' is a only a
'regulative'
one in the Kantian sense of the term, i.e. it is oriented towards a
dynamic
balance between different structures through which we construct
reality,
both semantically and pragmatically. Information utopias fill up the
formal idea of 'free flow of information' with contingent
structures thus
transforming it into a changing historical concept.

The following
genealogical analysis of information as an anthropological category is
inspired by the work of Michel Foucault (Foucault 1983; Schmid 1991,
p.72).
A genealogy should lead not only to an historical but also to a
critical
appraisal of our present situation in the electronic age through an
insight
into the contingency of past and consequently of present utopias. The
structure
of our cognitivistic information theories can be genealogically or
'deconstructively'
analyzed with regard to the institutions and practices of power behind
them, as Bernd Frohmann has suggested (Frohmann 1992). The following
analyses
are nothing but an invitation to continue doing this.

Let us first
take a look at the information phenomenon in contexts where the
vertical
dimension is prevalent, such as in myth, poetry and revelation. A
second
step will provide some hints on the structure of information in
philosophy
and science in Antiquity and Modernity as well as in its present
technological
form.

III. INFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF
MYTH, POETRY
AND REVELATION

One striking fact
about some present information theories is the small attention they pay
to the mythical, poetical and theological structure of the phenomenon
of
receiving a message from 'above' and giving it to others 'below'. An
exception
is the recent work by Michel Serres who makes an analogy between the
mythical
and theological role of the messenger and a 'prima facie' secularized
information
society (Serres 1993). This to some extent apologetical analysis is a
good
example of the fact that there is only an apparent historical linearity
between the mythical and our modern secularized ages. Such a non-linear
view opens up also the possibility of discovering hierarchical
dimensions
in our present horizontal model (and vice-versa). Together with this
general
disregard for the mythical forms of transmitting messages there is also
the question as to the appropriate term to look at when we want to
identify
the phenomenon of information in pre-modern times. In the case of
Western
culture this term obviously seems to be lógos. But
indeed
this choice, independently of the polyvalent meaning of the concept,
leads
us to an analysis by which we can no longer see the horizon against
which
this term was coined. This horizon is a mythical and poetical one as,
for
instance, in the case of Homer. In a mythical and poetical context the
term we are looking for is not lógos but angelía
(message).

First of all
it is important to remember that within this context the action of
transmitting
a message is a sacred one. Iris and Hermes are the personified homeric
symbols of this vertical or hierarchical structure, where 'message'
shifts
to 'command' and the act of transmission to that of 'ordering' and
'proclaiming'.
This need not necessarily be seen under a negative aspect. Particularly
not if we think that the institutions and practices related to
political
and military transmission were not the same as those exercised for
instance
by the poets and the mythical oracles. The oracle priest or mántis
was supposed to transmit the 'signs' (semainein) of the gods.
The
right or wrong interpretation of these signs was sometimes, as in the
case
of Oedipus, a question of life and death. What the priest was supposed
to announce was the 'wisdom' (mythos) of the gods. This power
structure
and practice, partly a command, partly an enigma appealing to the moral
sense, is what Heraclitus recalls when, with regard to the oracle of
Delphi,
he says that "it does not interpret (légei) or conceals (krúptei)
but gives signs (semáinei)" (Diels 1956, Heraklit Frg.
93).

In the case of
the poet (usually) his practice was one of bringing the "sweet message"
(angelían glykeían) (Pindar 1967, Olymp. IV, 5) of
the Olympic victory to the town and to the relatives of the winner.
This
is not the same structure as when Hermes brings a message from Zeus or
of the mantis 'un-concealing' the will of Apollo but it is indeed a
practice
to be exercised by someone who was appointed by the gods, who had a
vocation,
and whose speaking was the announcing of a high order event or
will.

The same terms
are used also in the case of a messenger who brings to the palace of
Agamemnon
the news from the victory at Troy (Aischylos 1914, Agam. 1-39). Angelía
was the usual term in the political and military context of announcing
an important event, for instance a victory or defeat or a birth in the
royal family. Another highly influential information structure in
Antiquity
was that of prophecies, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

It is remarkable
indeed that such a key term hardly appears after the fifth century
(B.C.)
in the context of philosophical thought: angelía will be
displaced by lógos. This is indeed a clear sign of
change,
i.e. of the emergence of new and different kinds of institutions and
practices
concerned with the process of transmitting knowledge, of teaching and
learning.
There is some kind of transition from the more vertical structure of
mythical
and poetical angelía to the more horizontal structure of
a common search for truth in philosophical dialogue.

This transition
can be observed for instance in Parmenides (540-480 B.C.) who writes
his
message (mythos) as a poem and refers to the goddess who is able
to discern between the many lógoi and the one mythos
(Diels 1956, Parmenides Frg. 8, 1). Lógos becomes
central
for Heraclitus (544-483 B.C.), but his practice is more that of
proclaiming
the truth in the sense of angelía than of looking for it
in a dialogical manner as has been the case since Socrates.

But before we
take a look at the phenomenon of information in the Socratic context
let
us remember that angelía, as a vertical phenomenon of
announcing
the 'good new', was the key concept in the Christian announcing of
salvation,
arising from the tradition of the Jewish prophets as well as of their
practices
and institutions. The fact that the Greek concept of lógos
was also deeply connected to the Christian message led to a synthesis
of angelía and lógos. The Christian angelía,
although vertical, arises in an epoch where the horizontal information
mood of lógos has become the norm. The forms of life
fashioned
by the philosophical schools and their manifold practices and
institutions
of communication and information are gradually substituted by those
created
by the announcement of the 'good message' (euangelion) supposed
to bring forth truth and 'salvation' (sotería). This
religious
message transforms during the Middle Ages the philosophic lógos
and the prophetic angelía into a sacra doctrina
sustained
by institutions such as the Roman Church and the universities.

The tension between
verticality and horizontality makes possible on the one hand the
practices
of the Inquisition but it inspires also forms of living such as
knighthood,
with its military and poetic ethos, allowing, as we call it
today,
an intercultural exchange between Christianity and Islam.

Jorge Schement,
by asking why in the story of Jesus' betrayal (Matthew 26, 14-48) the
Koiné
Greek does not speak of lógos, a word "whose meaning
might
come closest to 'information'", considers that this word would not fit
into the context of a sale (Schement 1992, p.175). The word used by
Matthew
is 'signal' (semeíon). Schement guesses that Latin informare
meant "to give form to, to shape", "perhaps to form an idea of, or even
to describe" (ibid.) (Capurro 1978).

This epistemological
meaning, going back to Socratic philosophy, was indeed transformed by
Modernity
into a property of the human subject. Its signs or symbols being
something
objective were soon regarded, particularly by rationalists such as
Descartes
and Leibniz, as something to be stored and processed. It is but a small
step to look at information as a commodity or as a thing to be sold.

IV. INFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF
PHILOSOPHY, SCIENE AND PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

From the very beginning
of Socratic philosophy one information mood symbolized by the term angelía,
namely the poetic activity, is the object of criticism. The concept of lógos
begins its splendid career and angelía
disappears.

In Plato's dialogue Ion
Socrates analyzes the 'hermeneutical' activity of
the Homeric
rhapsode who is supposed to transmit to the listeners a thought (diánoia).
But he cannot fulfil such a task as he does not know what he is talking
about (légei) (Platon 1967, Ion 530c). Ion has indeed the
divine power to fill his listeners with enthusiasm. It is the god
himself
who speaks (légon) to the poet and it is the rhapsode who
brings the message (hermenés) to the people. This double
vertical structure is compared by Plato to a magnet, not only as far as
a magnet caused to hang the rings down but also because it communicates
to them its force which causes the 'hanging down'.

This vertical
structure is not completely abolished but relativated by the horizontal
philosophical dialogue. The 'erotic' force leading and sustaining the
'logical'
search for truth has the Divine as its aim and origin. This means, on
the
one hand, an inversion of the transmission movement of the mythical and
poetical angelía but, on the other hand, this inversion
causes
also the content of the message not in some way already to have been
given
from the 'top' but must it be defined from the 'bottom'. In order to
get
to the 'top' one must be able to know in a particular way what we are
talking
about in each case so that we can transfer it into a higher level. The
content of the message is a lógos to be found and the
method
of communication is one of exchanging it in a dia-logue. But
the
philosophic lógos has something special with regard to
other
horizontal lógoi. Socrates criticizes the lógoi
of the artisans and politicians as they believe they know what they are
talking about, but then forgetting the limits of their knowledge i.e.
not
being guided by an 'erotic' self-transcendent or vertical force which
relativizes
all positive contents giving the possibility of looking through them
into
their divine origin. Whether or not this vertical tendency of the
horizontal
philosophical dialogue was more intense in Plato than in Socrates, it
is
nevertheless clear that Socrates' symmetrical attitude was highly
ironical.
He considered himself as a mediator, doing the work of a midwife. He
was
a 'daimonic man'.

The change from
mythical-poetical angelía to philosophic lógos
brings about new practices and institutions i.e. new forms of power.
Instead
of the palace, the war places and the Olympic games we are now at the agorá
and in the schools. New conflicts arise between the
philosophic communities
and the religious and political powers. The horizontal liberalization
of
philosophic dialogue accentuates the tension with the vertical
structures
of the pólis. Socrates's death is a clear example of
this
tension. Plato tried to integrate both poles in his state philosophy by
giving the political leader something of the 'higher' but philosophical
knowledge of the Divine. This structure determines in a very detailed
form
all kinds of rites, duties and techniques including the arts of the
ideal pólis. This is a substitute of the old
information utopia
as represented by the mythical and poetic angelía.

It is
a 'logical' information utopia where all the partial or 'technical' lógoi
are superseded by a divine techné which is transmitted
by
a long 'dialectical' education aiming at a knowledge of the
mathematical
and the 'ideal' structures and their imperfect representations in the
cosmic
and political order. The mythical experience of the divine is
integrated
into the platonic 'infological' structure as a 'sudden' (exáiphnes)
encounter with an 'unspoken' dimension (árrheton) after a
long journey of searching for the truth under the guidance of a
philosophy
master. This 'searching together' is therefore not symmetrical.
Socrates
and Plato in their roles as masters are mediators of the god in a
similar
but not identical way as the poet was. Although Plato, following
Socrates,
definitely gave the priority to orality as the adaequate medium in
which
the philosophic éros fertilizes the souls, he belonged
to
a culture where writing was already a generalized communication medium
particularly in the sciences. His dialogues are somehow a transition
between
the way writing was used by the poets to preserve and transmit a
message
which was intended to produce enthusiasm and its uses through
scientific
and 'technical' communities.

The allegory
of the cave (Plato 1967, Rep. 514-518) can be seen as an inverted
information
utopia of what a philosophical view of the 'unchanging' and
'supra-sensible'
world brings about. Instead of the multiplicity of forms or messages
reproduced
in front of the cave, of which the prisoners can only see the shadows
and
talk about them, the platonic dialectic presents a world where there is
no more need for information because the forms themselves are the
permanent
subject of an eternal communication structure. The ideal world is a
world
of pure form and therefore of pure communication. It is an 'un-human'
world.
Writing is for Plato a shadow of the oral lógos which
itself
is again an image of the 'mathematical' structures and these again of
the
'ideas' or forms. Learning to see the sensible world under the
perspective
of the 'world' of mathematical structures and of the 'ideal forms'
means
nothing more and nothing less than finding the 'utopian' place, i.e.
the
place or the perspective from where it is possible to see it as forever
'in-formed'. Plato's information utopia is a communication utopia. From
this 'ideal' perspective our 'global village' or
"télécité"
(Virilio 1992), is like a networked cave, a surrogate of the 'hyper
reality'
of the divine 'intellectual place' (tópos noetós)
of pure 'in-formation' or pure communication.

Plato's utopia
differs in many ways from that developed by Aristoteles. One key aspect
is the question of the kind of legitimation to be given to knowledge
mediation
through rhetoric or oral communication and writing. Aristotle was more
liberal in his conception of the role of media in the 'pólis'
(Aristotle
1950, Pol. viii). He was not oriented towards a mythical idea from
which
to 'in-form' reality but asked for a 'human measure' of living. In his
"Rhetoric" he legitimates different kinds of communication forms, such
as deliberative, juridical and laudatory speech, whose aim is to teach
or to inform (!), to influence and to please. Aristotelian rhetoric
offers
a framework for the foundation of information science (Capurro 1992).
But
also with regard to writing, Aristotle is no longer 'ideo-logically'
biased
as Plato was. He differentiates between writing for the school (esoteric)
and writing for the general public (exoteric) in a different
manner
as probably Plato did as he transmitted some knowledge through writing
but retained some basic insights which were supposed to pertain to oral
tradition only (Platon 1967, Epist. vii). Aristotle has a basic
confidence
in writing as an adequate medium for the communication of philosophic
investigations.
Aristotle collects and discusses the writings of other philosophers and
scientists. His nickname is 'the reader' (anagnóstes). An
anagnóstes was usually a servant who read a book
out aloud
publicly, while the academicians normally heard what was being read.
When
a book was publicly read out loud it was considered as
'published'.

The information
paradigm of the Greek lógos has many other shapes. It
looks
like a servant of economic and political power as in the case of the
sophists,
and it can be seen as a completely free form of communication (parrhesía),
particularly of taboo subjects, as in the cynical school - similarly,
the
relation of the philosophic lógos to poetry and religion
as well as to tragedy and comedy changes. The freedom to say anything,
at any time, to anybody is based on limited conditions as, for
instance,
to be a (male) citizen of the pólis and to respect the
laws.

After the encounter
of the Greek lógos with the Judeo-Christian angelía
the relation between the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of
information
changed in favor of the vertical angelía whereas
philosophy
became a servant of theology (ancilla theologiae). Renaissance
and
the Enlightenment looked for a liberation of the horizontal information
structure from its vertical mood, at least in the field of science. The
model of a rational discussion of arguments open to public discussion
through
writing seems really to have been achieved with printing. Modernity
raises
the question whether printing can be conceived as a neutral
communication
medium where messages can be passed without the censorship of the
government,
the church or the military.

This ideal was
stated for instance by Immanuel Kant in Beantwortung der Frage: Was
ist Aufklärung? as well as in Was heisst: Sich im denken
orientieren?
(Kant 1900). According to Kant the freedom of thought depends on the
freedom
of communicating our thoughts. To think by ourselves does not mean
thinking
in isolation within our own 'spirit'. This leads either to the kind of
intellectual imagination Kant calls 'metaphysics', i.e. to pure
speculation,
or to madness, as in the case of Emanuel Swedenborg (Kant 1990, Träume
eines Geistersehers). True thinking is 'common' thinking in the
sense
that it is the product of receiving the messages of others and of
communicating
what according to one's own judgement, is held to be the truth, without
censorship. Thinking has therefore for Kant a communicative and an
informative
dimension. The price for the freedom of autonomous thinking is its lack
of immediate practical influence or power. Kants free agorá
of thought is the Gutenberg marketplace. This is the modern information
utopia. But censorship of all kinds continues, of course, influencing
the
communication of printed ideas. Altough public libraries create free
spaces
of accessibility, the capability to read and write are constrained by
cultural,
economic and political factors. Finally we should not forget that the lógos
of modernity in many cases does not eliminate the vertical structure.
The
moral experience, as Kant clearly shows, has a vertical or 'imperative'
mood which can be experienced as a source of liberation from economic
and
political power, as can be seen through the political revolutions over
the last two centuries, but without no guaranty of success.

V. INFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF
ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY

At the end of Modernity
electronic networks paradoxically give back to writing some of the
contingent
characteristics of orality back, including the primacy of presence and
of the visual content and context of what is being said. The mass media
distribute instantaneously and universally all kinds of pictures of the
world which becomes the blue print of everything which is considered to
be a relevant fact i.e. of information.

According to
Helmut Spinner (Spinner 1994) the modern or classical 'knowledge order'
based on printing was characterized by the separation of ideas and
property,
of ideas and interests, of theory and practice, and of science and
state.
These separations are in a large measure undermined by electronic
networks
und the mass media. Of course the new media are, on the one hand, still
media, no more and no less than orality or printing were. But, on the
other
hand, it is obvious that already writing has not the same communicative
quality as oral communication, and that electronic networks and mass
media
offer different potential mixtures of horizontal and vertical power
structures,
as printing in the "Gutenberg galaxy" (McLuhan 1962).

There is no question
of trying to imagine a neutral or domination-free communication utopia
as suggested by Jürgen Habermas (Habermas 1988) by conceiving it
now
on the basis of electronic networks. Helmut Volkmann's ideas of a
coalition
of "spirit, power and money" towards the creation of "cities of
knowledge"
show, on the contrary, that the future shape of the phenomenon of
information
is intimately connected with power structures (Volkmann 1995). Internet
is an arena for all kinds of "wire pirates" (Wallich 1994).

The result of
a genealogical analysis should be a critical view of what we are
through a contrast of what we have been - and still are.
On this basis we can try to find out some characteristics of
information
in our 'electronic galaxy'. Instead of the legitimation of knowledge
through
political institutions (e.g. the communist party) and/or large
'ideological
stories' we are now, according to Jean-François Lyotard,
concerned
with a plurality of messages distributed in form of databases from
different
sources (Lyotard 1986). The idealized censorship-free structure of the
modern scientific lógos becomes part of a global network
of messages and messengers. If science has become a new source of power
in Modernity, a kind of secularized angelía is now at
work.
The question of power has of course not disappeared, it has become a
planetary
one. In a similar way as the discourse of the lógos
aimed
in ancient Greece and in modern Europe at displacing the power(s)
behind
the angelía, the discourse of information nowadays gives
the impression of a dissolution of the power of scientific method, for
instance, and/or any other kind of hierarchical power structure. Any
message
is valid, anything goes. This means a depotentiation of the idea of a
value-free lógos.

Every message
has a value and concerns a potential user or (!) individual. The
discourse
of information is a discourse of power based on the dissolution of an
idealized
social structure of 'mankind in itself' as dreamt of Modernity.
Information
is the reverse of this ideology. It looks chaotic, i.e. individual
oriented,
but it is based on power as such and on its outward sign, money. The
discourse
of the information economy displaces and discourages the idea of
information
as a social good by giving the impression of a non-hierarchical and
powerless
structure, where everybody has a chance to find the message one is
looking
for. But indeed this means that finally the messengers are the main
point,
the medium is indeed the message. But through the media, including our
present and future information superhighways as promised by Al Gore,
all
kinds of monopolies and power structures are at work. In the case of
the
mass media the vertical structure of information is still more evident
although less apparent as TV-channels distribute all kinds of messages
everywhere, open to everybody and all the time. The receivers (!) as
far
as they can navigate and manipulate the messages believe that they have
at least part of the power in their hands, and can even increase it, as
in the case of interactive systems. But of course the Murdochs and
Berlusconis
are at work not only in the brave new world of the electronic village
but
also in the very present Gutenberg galaxy.

Software development
might and can become part of the effort of combining the horizontal and
vertical dimensions of the human phenomenon of information through
electronic
artifacts, if it looks on the one hand, for the communality or
'conviviality'
of tools (Illich 1975), without forgetting, on the other hand, their
character
as power instruments for "reality construction" (Floyd et al. 1992) and
therefore their basic ambiguity (Capurro 1992). Lyotard asks
for
open systems, free accessibility and a culture of dissent. This
presupposes
questioning a new information jargon that devaluates all kinds of
social
construction of meaning, by at the same time introducing its own
economic
and individualistic values as the highest ones, under the camouflage
of horizontality.

CONCLUSION

Knowledge is now
indeed a thing to be marketed and the marketing divisions play a key
role
in the expanding information industry. The modern separation between
ideas
and commodities was an information utopia and it seems as if we have
attained
now the opposite one. The same thing has happened to the other modern
sharp
distinctions between ideas and interests, theory and practice and
science
and state as analyzed by Spinner (Spinner 1992). We are in a situation
where the new order can no longer be based on the principle of
separation
but on that of interaction or even fusion between these spheres. This
insight
raises new questions concerning the relation of information and power:

1. If public
opinion is shaped through all kind of media and particularly through
electronic
networks, how can manipulation be avoided or at least restricted?

2. If there is
no neutral communication medium, what would a democratic and
international
control of information monopolies look like?

3. If there is
a plurality of senders, i.e. a situation of controversial truth
authorities,
how do we manage misinformation and disorientation?

4. If science,
economy, national and international policies and societal forces
interact
in such a way that different structures of power are possible, where
would
an open discussion of alternatives take place?

And finally,
what would a social information order look like if it is to be
conceived
as a 'pendant' to a social market economy?